Effects of a Massive Reality
by Atin Agnihotri
Summary: Due to some crack-shot experiment conducted by the Indian Government, I find myself cruising timeline into the year 2154. Coping with this new world would have been easier if there were no Biotics and Systems Alliance to greet me. Follow my journey from May 2154 to November 2186 as I carve out an existence in a world filled with wonders and horrors undreamed. Self- Insert


**Author's Note : I don't own Mass Effect Franchise. Bioware and EA does.**

* * *

As promised to someone very special, I am writing down these recollection of my time in the Galaxy. Indeed many of the deeds I have done are lost to my memory. As such I'd have to rely on not only my narrative but narratives collected from my friends and associates. I might even rely on videos, logs and other documents, but it is to early to say. I hope you, the reader, finds this worth your time.

* * *

**A little something about my timing: **I was born in the year of 1996 in A**** Cantonment, Haryana, India to a business family trading in scientific equipments and Portraits of great scientists. The scientific influence that ran in my family indeed had an effect on me as I fell in love with physics at a very early age (And when I say early, I mean early) and this had a profound effect on every major facet of my life. Falling in love with science fiction and maintaining an academic aggregate of well over 90% and an obsession with scientific explanations were a few of these. That is until I underwent my Senior Secondary classes and my academic performance slumped considerably. Though I recovered in the nick of time just before my board exams. Having got a good result in it, me and my friends decided to have a night out which ended up being dragged to three days and night, the last of which was fucking crazy. And the next morning, on May 8, 2014, my life was going to go through the greatest transformation yet. That very day I was going to jump between universes.

* * *

It was about 06:30 in the morning and I was making my way through Army Area back to the civilian side of Cantonment. The last three days and particularly the last night had been crazy. Indeed my friend had planned everything. I guess him being the son of a Colonel helps, but that last part. And then he planned that little space for me and Vaishali. Nothing's sweeter that losing your virginity just mere months before you turn 18. But that all had been the night before. Now though, I was driving with a bag pack stuffed in the front space of my scooter and with my laptop bag on my back. I was at a speed of about sixty kmph. The sense of urgency that made me drive that fast came from the fact that the original plan had been of just one night not three days. And last I called Home my mumma didn't sound too happy with this deviation.

So here I was driving through the army area, pretty fast. The Army area was known for being open and green. I really wanted to slow down to enjoy the sights that were passing by, but that wasn't an option. Well, not until I saw a beautiful young girl standing on the pedestrian waiving for a lift. I really wanted to reach home early, but her form fitting red dress that accentuated her every curve at the right places gravitated my scooter towards her. As my scooter slowed down, she spotted me coming towards her, and a grin came to her face. I thought it must be a smile of relief but it was pretty sizeable for that. As soon as my scooter reached within ear shot she started waving her hand and calling me by my name. "Atin, Atin!" she shouted as I drove towards her. Now I'd to defiantly stop. And that decision perhaps was the biggest mistake on my life.

So I pulled the breaks and stopped at a respectful distance.

"Sorry, do I know you?" said I

"Why," she said moving closer "didn't recognise the _katora-cut_ ?"

For the next 2-3 seconds I tried to make sense of what she had just said. And then suddenly it dawned on me. _Katora-cut, _of course, the nickname of my childhood friend.

"Kashish?" I asked tentatively .

"Damn right. Didn't recognise me, did you?" she said.

"I'm surprised that you recognise me. "

"Anybody can recognise that face."

"Same can't be said about you. What happened to the hair cut?"

"You seriously think I'd wear that style. "

"So... what are you doing here?"

"Trying to hitch a ride to my home. Can you drop me?"

"Yes sure, come on."

And with that she hopped onto the backseat as I stuffed my laptop bag onto the bag pack. Having it in the leg space was surely going to make driving a living hell and she noticed that too.

"I can hold that for you." She said pointing towards the bag.

"Oh, no need it's fine." I replied.

"Here I'll hold it." Said she snatching the bag from my hands.

"Oh you don't need to." said I, trying to take it back. But she already had it on her back.

" Just drive _Chashmu_, I'll hold it. "

This comment really annoyed me. Ten minutes into meeting after such a long time, and she's already calling me out by names. And _Chashmu_, really? You don't make fun of guy's spectacles.

"Hey, that hardly fair. Did I call you _Katora_?" I protested as the scooter sped up.

"That's because I don't have that cut. Now drive."

Seeing that I'm already defeated here I resorted to some other topic.

"So Kashish, What are you doing here in A**** ?" I inquired.

"Pop's been transferred here. Some techno-thingy they're going to test."

"What thingy?"

"Techno-thingy."

"No techno about what?"

"Classified. I don't know either. But pops said it was something that could give India an edge."

By this time the scooter was fast enough that it was becoming a little difficult to talk in the rustle of opposing wind.

"Ah, I doubt anything can give India an edge." said I.

" Still haven't left your cynicism, eh Chashmu?"

"Well, you haven't stopped calling me 'Chashmu'."

"Some things never change do they?"

"I guess they don't. Anyway, how's life?"

"It's good..." And on went our time as we talked about our respective lives. She had, like me, taken non-medical sciences. And other few things about our school life until her phone started ringing.

"I really have to take this call." She said.

"Go on." I said, now my attention on the road for the first time in last few minutes. The back of my mind hearing to her voice and the sounds of morning ambience.

"Hey Pops. I've been trying for contact you in like forever but it always...wait what?...but why?...hello...pops...pops?"

"Bad reception?" I asked

"No...he said get away from Army area. Said go to Sabzi Mandi or somewhere."

"But why?"

"I don't know. But pops said in a very serious tone. I guess we really should get outta here."

"You sure?"

"Pops never that strained. Yeah, we really should get outta here."

"This doesn't make sense, one minute you're-"

"GO ATIN, we don't have time."

"Ok, ok."

And so I complied with the weird demand. Why was she so strained. And just why the hell would her dad ask her to go to Sabzi Mandi? Oh goodness, I hoped that they didn't unleash some stupid-ass experiment on us.

And that very thought was only going to remain a hope, a false hope. So false, that it was tragic. It would have been ludicrous if the stakes weren't as high as jumping universes. By now we were meters away from Officer's Mess, but complying with the request that came from the backseat, I turned my scooter in opposite direction and started on the way out of the Army Area. And the speed came back to sixty. As we crossed a few crossroads, suddenly a bright flash came from where the armoury must have been. We both looked at it's epicenter, then towards each other and then towards the road ahead as my hand came down hard on the throttle.

From that epicenter was rising a great globe, flashing in blue majesty. But I had no time to catch the sight. I had to get out now. Unfortunately, scooters like mine were never designed to go above 75 kmph. Slowly but surely the globe started to catch up to us. We both knew it would catch up to us. We were so deep within Army Area that there was no way in hell that we could outrun this and be by the Mandi side of A****. But I had to try. So I kept my right hand on the throttle and with my left hand took out my phone and messaged a 'I love you all. Remember me' to my family group in WhatsApp. It could have been nothing, the globule might have just been shining light after all. But I wasn't taking any chances. The way it was shining and the sonic blast that accompanied it, was giving me some nice hebeei-jebeeis. And as I was about to find out, my intuition was right.

A few agonizing seconds passed, with me trying to make our way out and the globule approaching us. By the time I crossed Alexandra road and came on to Indira Road, that thing was mere feet away from us. And I could already feel the warmth it was basking on us. Our tones were up in screams by now and a "Oh Teri Maa..." escaped my mouth before we were engulfed in it.

* * *

As soon as it engulfed us, I felt my heart skip a beat or two. Suddenly, we were in a tunnel like structure with no gravity. I was gripping strongly to the scooter, Kashish gripping to my left calf.

But this ended in a few seconds as the gravity returned, both of us falling shabbily onto the scooter. But that was not all. As my wits returned, I noticed that the scooter itself was good few feet's in air.

Another curse in Hindi, one that I'm unable to translate and is too difficult to type in Latin script, escaped my mouth as our flight ended and we crash landed. Or I crash landed, for Kashish was still in her flight, having been separated from scooter. For the most part I was able to keep the scooter upright as it's front and number plate blasted off from the body. But as it ran over a rather large rock, physics allowed no other eventuality but to fall. And in accordance with the laws of nature, I fell with a large thud, my weight adding to it's momentum. I swear I regretted not having shed these extra kilograms when I had time. Now though, I struggled in the pain of fall and tried to regain my composure. As the rattling sounds in my ears faded off I heard cries coming from some distance.

Oh Kashish, I thought, I should go check on her. But as I tried to run, I fell squarely on my face, my body writhing in pain, legs too weak to even stand. But as those cries got fainter, I forced myself to stand and slowly move towards her. As I reached her I could already see she was in a worse state. There were bruises all over her skin. But then I noticed the profusely bleeding shoulder. "Kashish, Kashish?" I called out trying to elicit a response from her. There was none. At that point I imagined the worst, but fortunately there was a pulse, weak but present. So I took off my shirt tying it around her shoulder with its sleeves. I tried to pick her up but wasn't able to do so, my shoulder blades refusing to sustain more pain. So I dragged her to the scooter, picked up the scooter then stuffed the to bags I had in leg space and pressed the auto-ignition. It didn't start. As my only resort, my foot kicked against the kick-start and after 7-8 kicks, the scooter finally came to life. By that time, although I had lost my spectacles I still was able to retain a clear vision, thanks to the low potency of my near-sightedness. And that's when I got some sense of my surroundings. It was dark in a semi-arid region. Far off I could see a sky line and now I had an idea to where I should head. At the very least I'd find some medical help there.

So I sat in between the front and back of the seat of the scooter and pulled Kashish' unconscious body in between the bags and the very front of the seats and started to drive off towards the skyline far off in the horizon. Her unconscious frame was already lop-siding as the scooter jerked it's way through the rough patch. To regain control over the scooter I pinned her between my frame and the handle of scooter, lest I'd loose control and we'd trip of. Bouts of pain rose from doing this due to the counter-force that came from pushing her frame. But I sustained that pain for some time as I drove off.

Finally I spotted a concrete road and drove towards it. It took some pulling to bring the scooter from the rough patch onto the road. Some meters down the road I noticed a neon sign saying 'Indira Road'. Indira Road? Was I in A****. I really was tempted to think that for the surrounding now started to look a little similar. But reasoned against it. First of, there weren't neon signs here. Second, A**** didn't have that skyline. Actually, it had no skyline at all. Because of the close proximity of the Air Force base, no building here was allowed to go more than six floors in height. So I drove off towards the T-junction I was seeing in front of me. Another sign came up, though this looked like yellow projection. But it was projecting in thin air. A hologram? Man, I thought, what's going on? And the content of that sign confused me even further. One said J********* Road, the other side Chandigarh highway. I was really in A****, wasn't I ? But this hologram and the neon sign and that skyline. This apparent contradiction confused me to no end. So I continued my drive towards the city.

A few crossroads later I spotted a person roaming about on the pedestrian. I shouted alternately in Hindi and English

"Hey! Please help me. Hello!"

As I closed the distance between us and that man, I saw his clothing. He was wearing jeans and full-sleeve tees. But it was neither round neck nor V-neck, sporting instead some silly looking collar. His words weren't much less silly either.

"Does that run on internal combustion?" He asked in English as if we were on Saturn V.

"What ?" Said I Confounded by the idiotic nature of his question. I mean, couldn't he see the exhaust ?

"Where did you get this stuff ? This looks ancient."

And it was at that moment I snapped out on him.

"FUCKING HELL. COULDN'T YOU SEE US BLEEDING ?! JUST TELL ME WHERE I CAN A HOSPITAL, FUCKING BOZO."

"Yeah, yeah," he said, with a hint of terror "Just down the road. You sure you don't wanna call the - " His last words were lost as I sped up in the direction. And with that the confusion was turning into despair. All through the road, I could recognise certain landmarks that belonged to my city. The final blow came with the sight of general hospital. It was in exact same place that it was in A****. But now was not the time to ponder. Soon I stopped by the hospital, now getting odd looks from the people around there. I kept the key in my pocket, flung each of my bag on the shoulders. This time I was putting twice the weight of what they had refused to pick up, but at that moment I willed to pick up both the bags and Kashish. And so with her in my embrace, I ran inside the building shouting for help alternately in Hindi and English. Soon two women in white dress cane by my side. These two were going to provide me with final shock.

Soon a man was taking Kashish from my hands as one of the woman unfolded a stretcher. That wouldn't have grabbed my attention if she hadn't done it by some telekinesis that seemed like biotics. Soon my eyes shot out to make sense of the surroundings. The wall near me had some kind of chronometer showing the following

'21:37 - 11-May-2154'.

On the adjacent wall there was Tiranga with a small Systems Alliance emblem towards it's top. As my eyes darted between the chronometer, the biotic woman and the Alliance emblem, my mind was overwhelmed trying to beat sense into the current situation. As such, me fainting in middle of a growing mass of people was quite warranted. Compared to the experiences of past few minutes, my face connecting to the cold marble floor didn't feel all that bad. In fact, now that I think about it, it didn't feel like anything at all.

* * *

**Author's Note :** So here is the first chapter of Massive Reality. I hope you liked it. For those who had been following Jump Effect, this is the revision I was talking about. More's explained on the last chapter of Jump Effect. Reviews are totally appreciated. Constructive criticism, even more so. So bye for now till I write the next chap.


End file.
